1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer-assisted methods for choosing or prioritizing among heterogeneous alternatives and more specifically to engines, methods, and systems for normalizing heterogeneous parameters for scoring proposals.
2. Description of Related Art
The process of ordering a number of alternatives and selecting one of the alternatives presents a number of problems. For example, the values of the criteria used to select from among the alternatives are often heterogeneous—they have different semantics, different units of measure and range, and so on. For example, the price of a laptop computer is measured in dollars, whereas laptop computer screen size is measured in inches. Also, the values of the criteria may have different degrees of desirability for different decision makers. One decision maker may prefer a larger screen because of its increased visibility, while another decision maker may prefer a smaller screen because of its greater portability.
The ordering and selecting process typically involves some degree of tradeoff among the various selection criteria. Tradeoffs are necessary because it is unusual for one alternative to be superior to all other alternatives in all respects. For example, as the disk drive capacity of laptop computers increases (a desirable trend), the price also increases (an undesirable trend).
Each alternative is characterized by a set of objective values corresponding to the selection criteria. The values of the selection criteria are objective in that the values are independent of the preferences and biases of decision makers. However, a meaningful comparison among the selection criteria cannot be accomplished easily and accurately using only the objective values of the criteria. A meaningful comparison must be based on a set of values that reflects the subjective nature of the preferences of individual decision makers, and must be based on a common unit.
What is needed is technology that converts the matrix of heterogeneous objective values into a matrix of homogeneous subjective scores that reflects the desirability of the corresponding objective values. The subjective scores must be normalized to the same unit so that they can be compared directly, both across criteria and across alternatives. Such technology is not to be found in the prior art.
Certain embodiments of the present invention address some of these problems.